Community Quilts
EBHQ members have a long
history of sharing quilting expertise, time, and love with others.
Individual members often make beautiful raffle quilts for fund raising
efforts in local schools and organizations. On average, Childrens
Quilts/EBHQ volunteers donate 1200 quilts a year to local children and
youth organizations. Guild members have stitched quilts to comfort
several communities affected by California fires including members of
our own guild who lost their homes in the Oakland Hills Fire. Our healing quilts have anonymously comforted local young people affected by unspeakable violence.
The Latest Community Quilt News
On our September 9 Drop-In the final stitches were sewn
on the labels of 18 family sized quilts for survivors of the Napa August 24
earthquake. The Napa guild has a section of volunteers who produce community
outreach quilts. The leader of this group will identify 18 people in the area
who will comforted by receiving one of EBHQ’s big emergency quilts. After
coming down and picking up our quilts, she will then deliver them. How very wonderful that these are all
ready to be snuggled around such families in need. Take a look at these beautiful quilts. (iPad/iPhone users click here.)
EBHQ Members: A New Way to Contribute Your Talents
A new delivery system is now in place to get 10-12 of our quilts
a month delivered to the Kaiser NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.) The size
needed is 38 by 46 inches. This specific size will be used as an incubator
cover and will dull the machine noises and lights in the nursery as well as
cheer the parents and hospital staff with the happy colors and patterns. The
quilt will go home with its own infant at the end of the hospital stay. If the infant does not survive, the
parents decide if the quilt stays with their babe or comes home to comfort the
family. So much love is stitched into each one of our quilts. It is amazing how
many hearts they touch. If you would like to help with some
aspect of the delivery system for the 1000+ quilts that EBHQ
distributes each year, please e-mail EBHQchildrensquilts@gmail.com.
Additionally, our quilts
have been sent with love and healing wishes to survivors of Hurricane
Katrina; women in recovery from surgical fistula repair at the Heal Africa Hospital in Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo; newborns in Bacho, Tanzania; earthquake victims in Joplin, Missouri; and survivors of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan.
You are most welcome to join us in our current quilt projects:
- Quilts of Valor
This foundation collects and distributes quilts called Quilts of Valor
(QOV's) to service members and veterans. This foundation is not about
politics. It's about people. EBHQ members donate quilts and fabric to this non-profit through our Children's Quilts distribution system.
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| quilt and photo by Deanna Davis
This note of appreciation from the Onesie Twosie organization of Kensington, CA illustrates how much these donated quilts can mean to the recipients.
And here's another letter from Onesie Twosie:
I
want to thank you and all of the members of The East Bay Heritage
Quilters for the beautiful, handmade quilts that you have given to
Onesie Twosie this year. I am estimating that you provided 240
quilts. That is a lot of caring and generosity. The social workers
that have received and distributed these blankets are so grateful to be
able to give something beautiful and useful to the families that have so
little. When I have met some of these new moms, I am always impressed
at how much they love their babies and how they want to give them
whatever they can to help them have a good life. Thank you for helping
these smallest neighbors of ours. Best wishes for a healthy, peaceful, and happy 2014. Laurie Marson Onesie Twosie http://www.onesietwosie.org/ (for more information) Children's Quilts News...Aug. 18, 2014Sadly,
we've just received word from Laurie Marson, director of Onesie Twosie
that their organization will no longer be delivering quilts, afghans and
booties. Laurie shares with us that these items that the East Bay
Heritage Quilters have supplied have been wonderful and very much
appreciated by the recipients. She also asks that sincere thanks be
conveyed to all of our members for your support and help.
Sasha Fleishman enjoying
the beautiful quilt sent for comfort and love by East Bay Heritage
Quilters after being burned on a bus ride home from school in Berkeley.
Debbie Crandall, mother, writes to say, "I hope you can share this with
whomever made it. Sasha LOVES it and so do we! Sasha is home now and
feels all warm and snuggly under it. Thank you all so much."
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News about recent EBHQ quilt projects:Here's a heart-warming letter from a quilt recipient in Colorado. I just received a quilt from a friend in Lyons, who told me that the community was sent quilts from your group after our flood. I hope this thank you is going to the appropriate place. The quilt is beautiful blue colors. I LOVE it and am sure it was made and given with much care and concern. My friend picked it out for me some time ago, but since I am still displaced from Lyons it took a while for us to meet , so she could give it to me. I live in the hardest hit area of my beloved little town. It will be a long while before I will be able to live in my home. It’s so hard to be separated from my special community. It’s been overwhelming how much help we have gotten, in so many ways, to help us thru this unimaginable challenging time. Bless all of you! Your kindness and thoughtfulness will not be forgotten. It’s unbelievable how much love there is in the world. I use the lovely quilt every night.
With tears of appreciation
Pam Barnes Lyons Colorado
- Heal Africa Hospital, Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo Do you sometimes get discouraged and think that one person cannot make a difference. This touching article tells the story of the founder of the hospital where we sent our quilts to help heal women in Africa. Because of the current turmoil in Goma more quilts cannot be safely distributed at this time. Financial support of this hospital is always welcomed and hopefully, again sharing our quilts may be possible in the future.
Thank You From Africa
Nurses and midwives in Bacho, Tanzania sing thanks for our EBHQ baby quilts: "We
mothers of KAMM* (an acronym meaning "improving health for women and
children) we say a lot of thank you to you. Thank you for doing the nice
things to us. Thank you for making the small blankets for our new
babies. We say Karibu Dareda/Bacho (Welcome to Dareda/Bacho.) Please
thank all the ladies of your quilting guild for bringing such joy to the
lives of the villagers in Tanzania."
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